1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a chain conveyor for gravimetrically measuring/dosing materials, especially bulk materials, with said conveyor comprising a housing/trough in which at least two conveyor chains with strip-shaped driving elements attached thereto rotate, as well as an inlet/filling opening and an outlet opening in the housing/trough, with at least one measuring bridge (2) which is supported on at least one force measuring apparatus is arranged between the inlet/filling and outlet opening.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such chain conveyors are used especially for conveying and weighing bulk materials. Such chain conveyors are also used increasingly in the basic industry (e.g. in the production of cement) for dosing or detecting the conveying strength of bulk materials because they allow a wear-resistant configuration at high throughputs and high draw-off forces. Moreover, the chain conveyor is relatively cheap to produce and service and easy to mount, so that the same is also suitable as a bunker draw-off member for abrasive, coarse or adhesive bulk materials due to this sturdy configuration.
The disadvantageous aspect in the conventional arrangement of the chain conveyor is that the dosing precision can be relatively low when the conveyed material sticks to the driving element webs during the emptying or when disturbing forces from the conveyor chains alter the measurement. This can lead to significant deviations concerning the dosing precision, which is important however for mixtures of additives. Weighing machines are already known in conjunction-with belt conveyors or even discharging plate conveyors (e.g. according to DE 195 36 871 or DE 42 30 368), with the conveyor belt or the discharging plate conveyor belt extending over a stationary weigh-bridge. These conveyors come with disadvantages relating to the wearing behavior or the required power consumption because conveyor belts made of rubber materials are subject to high wear and tear even in reinforced configuration on the one hand, whereas on the other hand discharging plate conveyor belts show high friction due to the relative movement between the individual joints, especially under high load.